There is a big debate, locally and nationally, about whether public-sector workers should be required to pay dues or fees to the unions that represent them.
The question is playing out in a U.S. Supreme Court case out of Illinois. It also came up during Washington's most recent legislative session when state lawmakers passed a bill that will change the way the state manages home care workers paid through Medicaid.
Critics, like local conservative think tank Freedom Foundation, called the bill a way to force union membership.
Labor leader David Rolf recently responded to questions about the bill and talked about the threats to public-sector unions. Now, we hear from Freedom Foundation Labor Policy Director Maxford Nelsen.
He spoke with Seattle Times reporters Jim Brunner and Dan Beekman. The conversation above is an excerpt from The Overcast, the Seattle Times politics podcast recorded at KNKX. Here are some highlights.
On SB6199: "What Senate Bill 6199 does is it directs the Department of Social and Health Services to contract out administration of the home care program to a private company. The theory is if they're hired by a private company, still paid through Medicaid, they'll fall under the National Labor Relations Act - federal private sector laws - instead of our state collective bargaining laws. That change, the union hopes, will allow them to again require caregivers to financially support the union as a condition of participating in this program."
On whether workers should pay for the benefits of collective bargaining: "You know I wouldn't go so far as to say that SEIU has never done anything that's benefited caregivers. But at the end of the day, it's the caregivers themselves who should be the ones choosing, 'Is this worth the dues money that we're paying?'"
On potential lawsuits against the bill: "We've been hearing from quite a few caregivers who are very upset about the bill, who want to do everything they can to fight back against it. With that said, we're looking at a fairly long timeline for implementation. The bill gives DSHS until July of 2021 to begin the transition to this private entity, and until that transition starts really nothing on the ground is going to change for folks. So it could be a little while, practically, before there's standing to even file litigation."
You can find The Overcast on iTunes, TuneIn, SoundCloud, Stitcher and Google Play.
